As in Tips & Tricks Vol. 12 again I would like to set the focus on playing with Midifiles.
This time we will investigate and study some really great and helpful functions for transposing the Song and using the unique Singer Key Function, that will automatically transpose the Song into the suitable Key for every Singer.

The first possibility that we are going use is the Transpose Function inside the Song Makeup Tools.
In case you always want to have the Song transposed into a certain Key this would be the right function to use, because it saves the selected Transpose Value inside the Song Data, so that the Song will be automatically transposed when you select it.

Let’s start by selecting a Standard Midifile.
(Off course you can use any Midifile in the market. For copyright reasons I will use again the Midifile for the Song “Amazing Grace”.)
 
Press the “Song” Button in the Finder Section on the Panel of the Keyboard.

Load the Midifile by simply touching the name of the Song.

Press “Play/Stop” in the Recorder Section on the Panel of the Keyboard to briefly listen to the Song.
Press “Play/Stop” again to make the Playback stop.

Now we are sure that a Standard Midifile Song has been loaded into the internal 16-Track Sequencer of our Keyboard.

Press “Exit” on the Panel of the Instrument.
Press “Makeup Tools” on the Panel of the Keyboard.

Press the “Common” Switch on the Touch Screen.

Now please Playback the Song, touch the “Transpose” Slot on the Screen and adjust the Transpose Value by using the Data Entry Wheel.

After you have selected the Transpose Value that transposes the Song into your preferred Key you can Stop the Playback of the Song and Save the Song by touching the “Save” Button on the Touch Screen.

Press “Execute” on the Touch Screen.

Please press “Yes” on the Touch Screen for replacing the existing Song Data with your modified Data that contains the correct Transpose information.
You can follow this routine for every Song that you would like to transpose with the Makeup Tools’ Transpose function.
The second possibility for transposing the Song that we are going to use is the manual Transpose Function.

Please playback the Song again.

Now you can use the Transpose < b & # > Switches in the Transpose filed on the Panel of the Keyboard. 
You can listen to the Song being transposed according to the Value that you select.
In the Default Mode the Playback will be transposed and the Keyboard Part that you might want to play life together with the playback will be transposed as well.

In several occasions, you want to transpose the Song individually form the Keyboard or you want to transpose the Keyboard individually from the Song.

Let’s have a closer look to some of these Occasions:

1st Case:
The Song is in the perfect Key for playing along but rather to high for your voice.

Press the “Transpose” Slot on the Touch Screen.

In the Mode Filed on the Touch Screen the switches for Song and Keyboard are both on.
The Transpose Function will affect the Song as well as the Keyboard Part.
As you now change the Key of the Song in the same relation to the Key of the Keyboard you still will be able to play the Song in the perfect Key, but you will be able to Sing the Song in your preferred Key as well.

2nd Case:
The Song plays back in the perfect Key for you to sing along, but in the same time you have difficulties playing the song on the Keyboard in that tonality.

Press the “Transpose” Slot on the Touch Screen.

Switch off “Song” in the Mode Area on the Touch Screen. After that you can adjust the Transpose Value until you reach a tonality that is easy enough for you to play in.

3rd Case:
The Song plays back in the wrong tonality and after transposing (ref. case 1) into the best Sing along Key you can’t play the Song anymore, because it has been transposed into a difficult Key.

In this Case a combination of “Makeup Tool” Transposition and Realtime Transposition will be suitable.
Start by transposing the Song in the “Makeup Tool” Menu (as described above) into the perfect Key for you to sing along.
Save the Song.
Now please use the transposition routine that has been described under the 2nd Case for adjusting the Keyboard independently from the Song to the right Key for you to play along.

Press “Exit”

Done!

Like this, basically every combination is possible.

Now we are coming to the most exciting part of this workshop:

The Singer Key Function!

Your Keyboard is able to scan every Midifile, and understand the tonal range of the melody.
Also you can teach the Keyboard about the range of your voice.
As a result the Keyboard will automatically transpose every Song into the perfectly suitable Key for your voice. Just great!

Let’s have a closer look now:
There are several parameters that we need to take care of, before the Singer Key Function will work properly.

Obviously we need to teach the Keyboard about our natural voice range.

Press the “Transpose” Slot on the Touch Screen.

Press the “Singer Key” Button on the Touch Screen.

We will have the possibility to program the natural voice range of 4 different singers into the instrument.

Please press “User 1” on the Touch Screen.

Please press “Edit” on the Touch Screen.

Now you need to connect a Microphone to the Microphone Input on the back of your Keyboard.
Please sing into the Microphone. (If necessary, please adjust the Input Level in the Vocal Harmony Part on the Panel of the Instrument)
After pressing “Lowest” on the Touch Screen, please sing the lowest Note that you can reach conveniently, then press “Highest” and sing the highest Note that you can reach conveniently.
After that please press “Execute” on the Touch Screen.
Ready.
(You can reach the same result by playing the Notes on the Keyboard. Just be sure that you sing in the same Octave as you play. This can be a little tricky, depending on the Sound you are currently using on the Keyboard.)

In the next step we will make sure, that the melody Part in the Midifile is played on Track/Channel 4.
The rules of Standard Midifiles define Channel 4 as Melody Track. However, several SMF manufacturers are still disregarding this rule and use Track 1 for the melody.

The easiest way of finding out if your Midifile is using Track 4 for the melody is to enter into the 16 Track Sequencer by pressing the 16 TRK SEQ. button in the recorder field on the Panel of the Keyboard.
Then touch “Track 4” and the “Solo” button on the Touch Screen.

Start the Song. If you can hear the Melody of the Song, you are using Standard Midifiles.

In case you can’t hear the melody of the Song then touch “Track 1” on the Screen.
Usually the melody will be there. If you are still not successful you will have to check every single track until you can find the melody.
After you have found the melody you will have to exchange this track with Track 4, because the Singer Key Function only works properly if the melody of the Midifile is on Track 4.

To exchange Tracks please press the “Track Edit” Button on the Touch Screen.

Then press the “Track XChange” Button.

In the first Slot on the Screen you can select the number of the track where you have finally found the melody.
In the second Slot you have to select Track Number 4.

Press “Execute”

Press “Back”

To confirm that the melody is now playing on Track 4 please touch “Track 4” and listen once again.

Now please save the Song by overwriting the old Data.

Important:
The Keyboard is only able to recognize the range of the melody after the Midifile has been loaded into the sequencer. Once loaded, the song will be automatically scanned in the background and a new parameter will be added to the Song’s Data. Therefore it is necessary to save the Song again by overwriting the old Data.
Just by using the Database Manager or the “Put New Songs Here” Folder the Songs will be available in the Keyboard, but the Singer Key Function will be out of order.
The Database Manager is not a Sequencer that is able to scan the Song for its melodic range.
The same goes for the “Put New Songs Here” function.
We will have to load every Midifile into the Sequencer and save it again.
This is a little bit more work in the beginning but the result will be worth the effort.

Once the melody range parameter is saved inside the song we can use the Keyboard with different singers by simply recording the different voice ranges of the singers.
We can even record different voice ranges for ourselves. Perhaps we feel, that after several hours of performing our voice goes a little deeper. Not a problem.
We can just modify the voice range in the Singer Key function and our Keyboard will always help us finding the perfect Key to sing the Song.
Or we already preview the situation and record a voice range for being in good shape and another one for singing after 2 o’clock in the morning.

Now we are able adjust the Key of every Midifile in a way that we will be able to conveniently sing and play along.

Thank you very much for making this workshop together with me.

Yours Sincerely
Ralf Schink, November 2007